Our waiter had stepped up to our table quietly. “Honored citizens,” he began, with a hesitant smile and an accent on the edge of gibberish. “You new to city. I be first to welcome you?" He was perhaps the one hundredth complete stranger to welcome us, but never mind, we knew what was coming. “May inquire - you have found a church yet?”
Found a church yet. It was the refrain Glatinu and I had been hearing since our ships had arrived in Kath, relieving the men that had marched over land, surprised the northerners and taken the city. When we'd taken rooms away from the barracks, the landlord asked if we’d found a church. When we'd had our kit delivered from the docks, the gang chief took our money, then asked us if we’d happened to have found a church yet, since he could highly recommend one. From street sweepers to random passers-by it was the same. I commented on this to the Governor, expecting him to laugh at the locals, but he looked at me seriously and said, "Make yourself useful, then, Wardmulidan and enlist. Someone on my staff needs to understand these people.”
I was thinking about this as Glatinu chased off our proselytizing server. Somehow I’d not been able to bring myself to cross the threshold of any church, temple or anchorage. The Emperor was my God: who needed another? But, there it was, the governor’s request-cum-order.
“I tell you what, Glati,” I said, in the moment the thought occurred to me. “I will take a dare. If the very next girl who walks by our table can be persuaded to invite me, I will sign up today, no matter whether she have three eyes and an extra nostril.”
“Alright, if you insist,” said my friend. “I dare you. But I think you will be bored five minutes after the chanting starts.”
“It’s a wager,” said I. “I stand drinks for the next week if I fail.”
“The next woman we see?” he said with a sly look.
“The very next,” I replied. As a wicked smile crossed his lips, I turned to see one of the witches of Kath moving across the plaza like a ship in a high wind, wrapped in a sea-green robe from head to toe, on business that surely did not include me.
Thinking I would be a pauper by the end of the week – Glatinu was a ferocious drinker – I rapped the table for luck, spit over my shoulder for protection, and sallied out.
But trying to stop the witch was like trying to hold back the sea. “Subject,” was all I could address to her before she sailed past without a pause. I half-ran to get ahead of her to make another attempt. I stepped into her path, swept a bow, and started, “Honored subject, –“, before a gloved finger reached toward me, and I found myself stumbling in sudden pain.
She had magicked me. Touched me, and turned me! Shame prickled, and anger, that an officer of the Empire, me, was being swatted aside without the slightest effort. I spun back, and without thinking summoned fire to my hands. It flashed through my mind that the witches had held our armies at bay for more than a month before surrendering. But wisdom sometimes comes too late; my spell shot at her like a whip. And disappeared with no effect into the deep green folds of her cloak. She stopped then, a full one hundred paces distant, and pivoted toward me. I heard Glati yelling, sensed that Kathians all around were finding better places to be. I fell beneath a wave of power.
It seemed to last forever, and left me breathless, battered, and blind. When the weight and roll of it lifted, I was on my knees, gasping. Glati was at my side, calling for our men. My head was spinning, but I was conscious enough to wonder how we’d ever bested such women. Soldiers were running to us from their posts around the plaza, and I had the sense things could get out of hand quickly. My anger turned to fear of being the agent of a situation I wanted nothing of. “Hold!” I croaked. “Stand down, Glatinumishdan! Stand down, everyone!” I stood carefully, pulling on his arm for strength. The witch smoldered where she stood.
“Your pardon, lady,” I called, using my shipboard voice. “There has been a misunderstanding.”
I do not know what might have happened then, for I sensed her rage even at this distance. But the moment passed, because another figure appeared at the witch’s side. She was a twin of my opponent, but in the palest blue. They stood like competing depths of the sea, and inaudible words passed between them. My assailant stalked away at last, while this second came toward our group.
She regarded us neutrally, her expression hidden by her veil, except for extraordinary, cool eyes. I wanted to bandy with her as I did with all women, but I was learning not to presume with these witches.
“You wanted to speak with us, foreigner?” she asked in an arresting voice with just a slight northern burr. She was as short as all of her countrymen, but carried herself with great dignity. My wits were returning quickly, but those eyes and that voice unbalanced me anew.
“My apologies, lady,” I replied. “I simply wished to ask a question of one who clearly must have great knowledge.” I thought I sounded quite diplomatic, but Glatinu bit back a laugh.
“My sister is not one for words with the empire’s men.”
“But you?” said I.
“A realist.”
“I am thankful, lady.”
She looked at me steadily, and I reddened, thinking about the bet with Glati, and how I had thought to play with these people. Seeing my chagrin, she softened.
“A question, you said?"
“Yes,” I answered. Our men, with calm restored, moved back to their posts. “Since we arrived here, I have been the, um, honored recipient of many invitations to join a church.” I smiled with a bit of my usual humor, “I think I‘ve been invited to join every church in Kath. Could we have been invited over fifty times, Glatinu?”
“Maybe twenty,” he corrected.
“Ah,” said the witch, “I see. Have you found a church yet.”
“Exactly.”
“And you have no idea, foreigner, why people you have conquered, whose armies you have blasted, would want you to join them in worship? I will tell you.” I saw a smile in her eyes then. “You see this city. It is a great wheel, with eight thoroughfares as spokes meeting in this plaza, and a great church at each joining.” She paused, as though perhaps this was too complicated for me and I nodded understanding. “In twenty days, at the turning of the moon, it will be our great Festival. Each congregation will compete in prayer, in artistry, and in strength.”
“Strength?” I repeated, meeting eyes with Glatinu. Strength was something we knew.
“We bring forth images of our saints, and each church competes to be first to drag its avatar from the edge of the city to the heart. It is a glorious day for us, when we remember who we are, and what we are.”
“But,” said I, plainly: “I am the Emperor’s man, a foreigner.”
“Look at yourself, soldier. You stand a full span taller than any of us. You bore the fury of my sister’s magick. We look at you,” and she laughed suddenly like a land breeze after weeks at sea, "and we think ‘This one could pull a rope!’”
Which is how Glatinumishdan and I found ourselves twenty days later stripped to the waist, sweating, swearing, and laughing with our fellow congregants as we dragged the heaviest damned block of carved weirdness I’d ever seen from the edge of the city to the very center. I’d found a tale for the governor, but I’d found much more.
She walked ahead of us, clad in fairest robes of blue, like foam on a cresting wave, calling us to strength and speed. I’d found my church, oh yes. And she could have my heart, my soul, my very being for the asking.
